Spirit Shaman
Master of the spirit world, the spirit shaman follows a different divine tradition than the cleric or the druid. Her world is filled with powerful, living spirits, some helpful and some malign. By bargaining with these spirits, the spirit shaman gains power over the natural world and mighty divine magic with which to aid her comrades or smite her enemies. Adventures Spirit shamans exist to mediate between the human world and the spirit world and make sure that humans (and dwarves, elves, orcs, and all other humanoid races, of course) respect the spirits as is only right and proper. Spirit shamans adventure to advance the causes of whichever spirits they favour. Those who venerate helpful spirits seek to assist people deserving of the spirits’ protection. Those who revere dark and vengeful spirits promote the chaos and suffering in which their patrons delight. Through their actions, spirit shamans prove the power of their patron spirits and earn prestige and status in the spirit world. Characteristics Spirit shamans cast divine spells much the same way druids do, though they get their spells from powerful spirits of nature. Their spells, like the druid’s, are oriented toward nature and animals. In addition to spells, spirit shamans gain an increasing array of spirit powers as they advance in level. Alignment Spirit shamans, in keeping with the indifference of the spirits, tend toward some measure of dispassion. Unlike druids, they are more tribal than solitary, and involve themselves in the affairs of their fellows. Most spirit shamans are neutral on at least one alignment axis, but it is not uncommon to find a spirit shaman who has become so caught up in the affairs of the living that she has lost her distance from human concerns. Religion A spirit shaman reveres the essence of religion more than the practice. She gains her magical powers from the spirits that inhabit all things, living and dead, animate and inanimate. She combines ancestral worship with animal and nature worship. The typical spirit shaman, like a druid, pursues a mystic spirituality of transcendent union with nature rather than devoting herself to a divine entity. Still, some spirit shamans give honour to deities of nature such as either Obad-Hai (god of nature) or Ehlonna (goddess of the woodlands). Background Spirit shamans are first taught by older shamans. When a tribe’s spirit shaman feels that the time is right, she chooses a potential successor from among the young folk of the tribe. Taking the youth into her own home, she spends years teaching her student the ways of both the natural world and the spirit realm. Typically, when the young spirit shaman is ready, the older shaman then sends her student out to wander the world for a time in order to gain the wisdom and experience necessary to serve as the tribe’s spirit shaman on his return. Sometimes, a young shaman impatient with an overly cautious master strikes out on his own to seek out the knowledge he feels his master is withholding. Role The spirit shaman is only a mediocre melee combatant, but she can hurl spell after spell in a combat situation. No other character matches her ability to study a situation and customize her spell selection for offense, defence, or special purposes. Like the druid, she can serve as a party’s healer, but she is best in settings where she does not need to devote many of her spell choices to healing and can maximize spell choices that provide offense for the party and aid her companions in battle. Category:Class Category:Base Class Category:Spirit Shaman Category:Divine Spell Casting